Posts published in “Day: October 18, 2010”

Context. Context. Where it hit some people's attention was in the peculiar one-sentence press release from the Newberg, Oregon, chamber of commerce: A member of the government affairs committee had been expelled. Peculiar, but would it matter to anyone but the chamber?

If you get more than that one sentence, a big ball of twine starts to unravel. As it happens, the McMinnville News Register was on to the story days before the expulsion, and last weekend ran a big, and fascinating, article about the politics behind it.

Briefly, the expellee was Yamhill County Commissioner Leslie Lewis, a long-time major figure in county politics (years ago she rose to leadership in the state legislature) - and a key supporter this year of commission candidate Mary Starrett, a very conservative (former Constitution Party candidate) who is trying to unseat incumbent Mary Stern, who has a good deal of Democratic support. The Newberg chamber is a conservative group (that city probably will be Starrett's major base in the election), but at a recent meeting there, Lewis crossed a line.

From the News-Register: "Yamhill County Commissioner Leslie Lewis is under criminal investigation by the state Department of Justice for allegedly secretly videotaping one or more candidates during private Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce endorsement interviews in Newberg and then passing that tape on to others. The taping was allegedly done in April, but just came to light with the posting of a heavily edited excerpt from Commissioner Mary Stern's endorsement interview on YouTube and a conservative Republican website."

Now the state attorney general's office is investigating in what is described as a criminal investigation. Protesters today called on Lewis to resign. (Democratic protesters, to be sure, but they'd never had a basis for such a demand before.) And Lewis' base, the heart of the Newberg business community - the mayor among others is on the panel - has turned on her.

A local matter to a considerable degree. But we wouldn't be surprised if, two or four years from now, this incident wound up having some real structural impact on the politics of this county of almost 100,000.

Yes, it's nearing the end of campaign season, and the economy is still in the tank. Those facts were reflected in this week's Digests, but so was a lot else.

Some of the highlights, for example, from the Idaho edition: "Negotiations yield health care trust; More comment on water quality plan; UI research outpost at Post Falls approved." Not that these made big headlines elsewhere. (We approach "the narrative" in a different way.) From Washington: "New ferry launches; More support on Alaskan Way? Corrections union okays COLA forbearance." A little off the beaten path.

As a reminder: We're now publishing weekly editions of the Public Affairs Digests - for Idaho, Washington and Oregon - moving from a monthly to a weekly rundown of what's happening. And we're taking it all-electronic: The print edition will be moving to e-mail.

That means we can include more information, and get it out a lot faster: The weekly Digests will be in your in-box first thing Monday morning. If you subscribe, of course: That's $59 a year, for 50 issues and the yearbook. Yes, including the yearbook. The Idaho Yearbook, which we published for years up to 2002, will return early in 2011 - in printed book form - and Digest subscribers get it for free with their subscription. And the Oregon and Washington yearbooks will be coming out at the same time.